At least three members of the University of Ottawa hockey team had sex with a woman during a road trip to Thunder Bay while other intoxicated players either watched or played a role in the sexual activity, the school alleges in new court documents filed Monday.

The University of Ottawa also alleges in a statement of defence that the hockey team’s then-coach knew about the February 2013 allegations soon after the alleged sexual assault occurred but that he didn’t report them to the school or the police. The coach, Réal Paiement, instead treated the matter as “an internal team discipline issue” and suspended four players for the rest of the season.

The allegations, none of which has been tested in court, are contained in a statement of defence filed by the university in response to a $6-million lawsuit filed by player Andrew Creppin. Creppin alleged that the school’s decision to suspend the entire hockey program for the 2014-15 season unfairly tarnished his reputation and that of other players.

In its statement of defence, the university details how it hired an independent investigator to probe the allegations of sexual assault during the trip to Lakehead University. According to the statement of defence, the investigator determined that sex between one of the team’s rookies and the woman was consensual. But the investigator was unable to determine whether sex between the woman and two other players was also consensual.

Team captain David Faucher and assistant captain Guillaume Donovan have been criminally charged with sexually assaulting a 21-year-old woman.

The investigator concluded that several other team members, in various states of undress, either watched as Faucher and Donovan engaged in sexual activity with the woman or were present in the room, according to the statement of defence. The university also alleges that some of those players might have played a role in the activity or touched the woman while others overheard what was going on through an open connecting door between the hotel rooms.

Patrick Doyle / Canadian Press

Most of the players had consumed “large or excessive amounts of alcohol,” according to the school. One of the players drank so much that he was taken to hospital by ambulance with alcohol poisoning. Paiement sent four of his players, including Creppin, to the hospital to help their teammate.

According to the statement of defence, the investigator’s findings were based on interviews with 10 of the players who agreed to meet with him, Paiement and other team staff, and a friend of the alleged victim who ultimately was the one who notified the university and police. The investigator did not interview the alleged victim.

The university took the advice of two outside experts who recommended the team be suspended for the 2014-15 season given the gravity of the alleged sexual misconduct and excessive drinking, the ongoing criminal investigation, and the fact that fewer than half the team members would agree to interviews with the university’s investigator, according to the statement of defence. The experts also recommended that the coach be fired, which he was.

The university alleges that the decision to suspend the team was within its discretion and that Creppin’s lawsuit is an abuse of process.

“The investigator’s factual findings raised serious concerns about the conduct of many team members who apparently participated in, encouraged or witnessed allegedly non-consensual sexual activity, who drank to excess, who violated rules for student athletes and the team, and who were comfortable in a culture where a possible sexual assault was not reported,” reads the statement of defence.

In a reply filed with the court, Creppin’s lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, said the school’s statement of defence “effectively clears” his client and 10 other members of the team who either weren’t on the trip or had gone to the hospital. However, it continues damaging the reputation of other unnamed team members with its “murky and salacious allegations unsupported by particulars.”

“The defendant’s statement of defence compounds its earlier negligence and causes further damage to the reputations of the plaintiff and the proposed class by once again group punishing and casting a dark shadow over the reputations of all members of the team, unfairly, without justification, and to the detriment of the innocent parties involved,” says Creppin’s reply.

Faucher and Donovan have yet to be tried on the criminal charges. They are next scheduled to appear in court Feb. 2.